Developing Children’s Critical Thinking through Picturebooks: A Guide for Primary and Early Years Students and Teachers by Mary Roche

Reviewed by: Developing Children's Critical Thinking through Picturebooks: A Guide for Primary and Early Years Students and Teachers by Mary Roche Rachel Skrlac Lo (bio) Developing Children's Critical Thinking through Picturebooks: A Guide for Primary and Early Years Students and Teachers, by Mary Roche. London: Routledge, 2015. Designed for university-level children's literature and literacy courses, Mary Roche has written an accessible text on using literature to engage in critical thinking practices with readers from the very young to grown adults. In the introduction, she notes the book is a guide to "introduce children to good literature, big ideas, critical engagement, and the notion of making meaning together through thinking and discussion" (3). Roche emphasizes the value she places on books and nurturing a love of reading in young children. She adopts an active reading stance, encouraging a form of pedagogy that situates readers—both students and educators—as reflective and agentive. Her goals parallel others' contributions to the field, especially those of Lawrence R. Sipe, who encouraged a wider exploration of the connection between literary understanding and literacy learning. Sipe envisioned picturebooks as a means to "imagine a different society" offering readers an "ability to [End Page 256] impose a new narrative construction on the social facts at our disposal" (246). Like Sipe's scholarship, Roche draws on literary and critical literacy theories and then grounds her work in children's responses to literature. She gives equal weight to the literature and these responses; the children's voices provide rich insight into the value of literary engagement in the classroom. She also reminds us of the pleasures of reading "good" books and the benefit of this positive engagement. This book should appeal to those fortunate enough to teach children's literature and literacy classes as well as those who are curious about ways children navigate their encounters with children's literature. Roche believes the path to developing language and critical thinking skills is through literature, preferably high quality literature. The purpose of her text is to deconstruct the idea of reading books and to reveal subjective positioning of readers and books in classrooms and children's lives more generally. Roche's big idea is "critical thinking and book talks" (CT&BT), a form of engagement with picturebooks that addresses literacy practices that Roche claims are shunted in favor of measurable skills like decoding and encoding. She defines literacy widely. It is more than discrete skill building; she emphasizes "oral language, critical thinking, love of reading, and … the ability to respond to literature in an authentic fashion through dialogue and discussion" (3). Roche promotes critical thinking and reflective practice in order to raise awareness of picturebooks' potential to engage students as cocreators of meaning both in texts and in daily experiences: "critical thinking is necessary for making sense and meaning of our lives and our world" (11). Drawing from Paulo Freire, she critiques a banking or transmission model of education, which perceives learners as empty vessels waiting to be filled with knowledge given by teachers. For her, picturebooks are a medium to resist this model and engage in critical thinking, or "thinking for oneself rather than passively receiving the ideas and thoughts of others" (25). For Roche, picturebook read-alouds are an ideal starting point for dialogical and critical thinking. The book is divided into two sections: the first section (chapters 1–5) maps out the theoretical and conceptual frameworks; the second section (chapters 6 and 7) provides guidelines for enacting CT&BT in the classroom. The chapters in this conceptually sound book are easy to follow and navigate as the concise writing carries readers along like a canoe floating down a calm stream on a warm summer's day. Peppered throughout each chapter are children's voices and numerous examples from picturebooks. In addition to a thoughtful bibliography [End Page 257] and an extensive list of children's literature, Roche provides suggested reading at the end of each chapter. These suggestions are diverse and complement each chapter; they should be a welcome resource for those interested in picturebooks as well as university students seeking additional sources for term papers. The first chapters offer a critique of...